


A Lasting Impression

by Lenny9987



Series: Lenny's Imagine Claire and Jamie Prompts [68]
Category: Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-15
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2020-10-18 19:15:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20644283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lenny9987/pseuds/Lenny9987
Summary: Prompt: Imagine Jocasta and Brianna discussing art? Am I right in remembering that both Ellen and Jocasta had artistic talent?





	A Lasting Impression

Claire had volunteered to take the baby for a walk so that Brianna could rest. She remembered those early weeks of motherhood and how exhausting they’d been. She remembered how much she longed, not just for Jamie, but for Jenny and Ian and Mrs. Crook and all the company there’s been at Lallybroch when Jenny’s girls were infants. Instead, she’d had Frank (when he wasn’t at work) and one or two neighbors who would check on her (and judge her mothering skills). She remembered how she struggled to remember her own mother and how she’d wondered what her mother’s advice to her would be. 

When she’d first realized Brianna was pregnant, one of Claire’s first feelings had been relief that she could be there for Bree after all, that her daughter wouldn’t have to endure her pregnancy alone. 

The baby fell asleep soon after they left the house, but that only made the walk easier. He was getting heavier but hadn’t yet taken to squirming too much. Soon he would be alert and curious enough to turn even simple chores and tasks into a nightmare; he would be reaching for things and putting them in his mouth when he got them, screeching when he didn’t get his way… But for now, he lay limp against Claire’s shoulder, his mouth slightly open, and a pool of drool beginning to soak the cloth she’d spread beneath his head to protect the neck of her dress. 

Claire noted the herbs that were ready for picking and began to itch for her basket. She would need to return to the house and swap the slumbering baby for her basket and the garden knife Jamie had given her. 

Approaching the house, Claire discovered that Brianna wasn’t napping anymore. She’d joined Jocasta in a chair on the veranda, her sketchbook in her lap. But she wasn’t drawing. She was looking out at the yard leading down to the river front and talking. Jocasta faced the same direction with a sad smile on her face, her blind eyes searching for the memory of light. As she got closer, Claire could hear what Brianna was telling her great aunt. She was describing the landscape, but not how it looked as the sun continued to rise above the trees on the far bank of the river with the light sparkling sharply off the water’s surface. No, Brianna was describing how she would approach capturing it on a canvas. 

“There’s too much movement for precision,” she was saying as Claire stood watching them. “The only way to convey that is not to think too much. Lay out the underlying colors on the palate and then mix them here and there. Get a bit of paint on the brush and then smear it where you see the color. Can’t even worry about the general shape, just the flash of color cause as soon as you get it down, the river moves on and takes that bit of color with it.” 

“It sounds like a thrilling challenge,” Jocasta agreed. “But I do fear there arena many as would appreciate the result. I ken many as would say an approach like that would only yield a mess. And did I have the proper use of my eyes, I’m no sure what I’d make of it myself… but it  _ sounds _ lovely.”

“I’ll paint a scene in that style for you,” Brianna declared with a grin. “You’ll be able to feel the brush strokes with your fingers and I’ll tell you which colors and what you’re looking at. If I do it right, you’ll have the impression of the scene.” Brianna spotted Claire as she said the last and a bit of color rose in her cheeks.

Jocasta chuckled. “I should like that. And what do ye think of yer daughter’s notion, Claire?” Jocasta asked, raising her voice and quirking her head to gauge Claire’s reaction to knowing she’d failed to sneak up on the blind woman. “D’ye think it’ll be worth the materials that go into makin’ it?”

Claire shifted the baby in her arms as he began to rouse and search for his next meal. Brianna set her sketchbook aside and rose from her seat, crossing to take her son from Claire. 

“I think it will work beautifully,” Claire decreed, dropping into the seat on Jocasta’s other side. 

“And have you a hand for drawing or painting?” 

“I have nowhere near Bree’s talent, but I can sketch a plant well enough to find it again and can capture a body or injury enough to recognize the condition a second time,” Claire admitted. “But from what Jamie tells me —and from what I saw at Lallybroch — Bree gets most of her talent from her grandmother.”

Jocasta smiled warmly and nodded. “Aye, Ellen had a good eye and a steady hand. As did I, in my younger days. The hand remains steady,” she declared, raising one and holding it still with graceful ease, “but the eye has failed me. It’s only in my mind’s eye I have any sight left, and even that begins to fade wi’ time.” The three women paused in a moment of silent mourning for Jocasta’s loss. “Did ye have anyone to teach Brianna when ye found she’d a talent for drawing, or is she entirely self-taught?”

“She had some lessons when she was younger,” Claire fibbed, watching Brianna’s smile over the baby’s head as they both recalled the finger paintings and macaroni artwork that Brianna had brought home from school and proudly displayed about the house. “And I took her to galleries to see art, of course… when the opportunity presented itself.” 

“I wish I might have had ye to visit a few years ago, when I still painted myself. I’ll have my things taken out for ye to use, Brianna, as ye wish,” Jocasta promised. “But now, I ought to have a word with Ulysses about some household matters.” Brianna clutched the baby to her with one arm so she could stand and offer the other to Jocasta. Claire helped from the other side, humoring Jocasta as she made a fuss about not needing there to be a fuss. 

When she was safely inside and out of earshot, Claire sidled up next to Brianna to watch the baby sleep. She spotted the abandoned sketchbook and the page Brianna had been working at earlier. The curve of the river was laid out simply above the faint outline of the baby’s head, his eyes pressed shut and his mouth open with a yawn. Claire also recognized Roger’s profile in silhouette along one edge. 

“The Impressionists wing was always your favorite at the MFA,” Claire said at last, unable to keep a smile from her face as she peered at Brianna from the corner of her eye. 

Color rose in Brianna’s cheeks but she was smiling too. “I remember starting out standing as close as I could and then walking backwards until I reached the point where the smudges of paint became waterlilies or a haystack,” she reminisced. “It was like magic. The boundary between chaos and order. Only art can really capture both at once.”

“I feel the same way when I look through a microscope.” 

Mother and daughter turned to each other and laughed. 


End file.
